Jean Craig Grows Up

by Kay Lyttleton

17. A Ghost Is Uncovered

It was unlike any sound the girls had ever heard back at the Cove, almost like a human being in distress and yet like some animal cry too.

“It’s a fox,” whispered Astrid, getting nearer to her big sister.

“No, it isn’t,” said Abby. “That’s a deer. They always yell like that when there’s a full moon.”

“It was right near, I think, right outside.” Kit sat up, eager and tense. “Shall I flash the light, Jean?”

“Not yet. Wait until it comes again. I think it was only some night bird.”

So they waited breathlessly. Every tiny creaking noise in the old house was intensified by the heavy silence. Jean rose and went to the window. The moon was not up yet, and it was hard to distinguish objects, but down in the garden she thought she saw something that looked like a cow lying down.

“I can’t tell just what it is. It may be only a stray cow or horse,” she said softly.

“Throw something at it,” suggested Kit hopefully. “Let’s all throw something.”

“Just to see whether it jumps or not,” Astrid assented. She hunted around and found some loose half bricks in the chimney place.

“Where’s Tip? He hasn’t barked once,” remarked Abby.

“Dogs are always frightened when they see ghosts. Let me fire away at it first.” Astrid took aim and the half brick flew down at the dark thing with a deadly thud, but there was no stampede. She leaned far out the window, staring at it anxiously. “It seems to me I can see it move and it has horns and a sort of woolly tail, kids.”

“Sounds like a yak,” Kit chuckled. “I’m willing to do this much. I’ll go to the door and open it, and you girls stay here with bricks to throw, and when I flash the light on it, if it jumps you can save me.”

But before she could carry out the plan the sound came again, longer and more thrillingly penetrating than before. It was a wail and a challenge and a moan all in one, not just one cry, but a prolonged succession of them. As soon as it stopped Sally exclaimed, “Now I know. That’s an owl and it comes from the little attic over the ell where we couldn’t climb because there weren’t any stairs. Remember?”

“Sure, Sally?” Etoile’s tone was almost trembling. “Never have I heard such a cry.”

“Oh, I have. It’s an owl, I know it is, one of those big ones. Riding through the woods at night coming home from town I’ve been half scared to death by one of them. Sounds like seventeen ghosts all rolled into one. Come along, Kit, you and I’ll go hunt it up.”

The rest followed gingerly, a strange procession bearing candles, Kit leading with the flashlight. Tip stumbled up drowsily from the kitchen and barked at them.

“Oh, yes, it’s all very well for you to bark now,” laughed Jean. “Why didn’t you go after that noise?”

They reached the ell room and found a trapdoor in the ceiling. Abby remembered seeing a ladder out in the back entry behind the door, and this was brought in.

“And see this, kids,” she exclaimed, running her finger over it. “No dust on the rounds. That shows it’s been used lately.”

“Aren’t we the smart ones? Abby, I love the way you never miss anything.” Kit leaned the ladder up against the wall and mounted it, with Sally close behind and the other girls at its base. “What if it shouldn’t be an owl—”

She stopped with her palm against the trapdoor. Raising it about an inch she flashed the light, and there was a great fluttering overhead.

“What did I tell you!” Sally cried excitedly. “Do it again, Kit. It can’t hurt you and the light blinds it.”

So the trapdoor was lifted again with the light of the flashlight turned on full, and Kit cautiously pulled herself up into the opening. It was tent-shaped and low, not more than four feet at its highest. But instead of being bare like the rest of the old house, there were certainly evidences that someone had been there. There was a tin can filled with fresh water, and a strip of rag carpet laid down on the floor. A box of fish hooks and neatly rolled lines lay on one side, and there was a small frying pan and a knife and fork. Rolled up in one corner was a pair of old overalls, and some books much the worse for wear lay beside them. Kit’s glance took in everything, and last of all, backed into a corner and blinking hard, was the ghost itself—a big white owl.

Sally pulled herself up too, and reached out after the books gently so as not to frighten the owl any more. With a couple in her hand, they lowered the door again, and joined the others.

“It’s an owl and a hermit’s nest,” Kit told them excitedly. “Open the books, Sally, is there any name inside?”

Sally read off the titles, “Treasure Island and David Copperfield! He’s got a nice collection, hasn’t he, whoever he is? There isn’t any name inside, though.”

“Well, there was certainly fresh water in that tin,” Kit said positively, “and that shows the haunted house is inhabited by something tangible, I mean something besides the owl. Let’s go to bed very calmly and sleep. I’m sure we’ve laid the ghost.”

Evidently they had, for the rest of the night was peaceful and safe except for the owl crying out lonesomely at intervals until about four o’clock, when the dawn came. Rolled in their blankets, the girls slept soundly until the sunlight threw broad golden beams into their quarters.

There was no rope on the windlass at the well, so Ingeborg proposed that they go down to the river and wash there. It was lots of fun. They found that the dark and fearsome object they had heaved bricks at the night before was only a big gray rock half sunken in the ground.

Along the river margin turtles sunned themselves in rows on the half-submerged logs, and a muskrat scuttled clumsily for cover at sight of the invaders.

“I wish we could go right in,” said Jean, looking up and down the winding course of the river as she parted the alders, “but it isn’t really safe when you don’t know the water. This looks full of unexpected holes and snags. Where does it run to?”

“Down past the two mills, and rises away up in the Quinnebaug Hills,” Sally told her, kneeling on a flat rock and splashing herself well. “Did you see that black snake slither out of the way then? They’re awful cowards. Yes, Jean, this comes from Judge Ellis’ place about two miles beyond here, three and a half by road.”

“Judge Ellis? Billie’s grandfather?”

“You talk just as if you knew him already, Doris.”

“Well, I feel as if I do, after all Rebecca has told us about him. And when I do meet him, I’m going to make him my friend.”

“Who? The Judge?”

“No. This Billie person. Or I’ll take him home to Tommy—Tommy would be crazy about him.”

“Hey! Look what I found,” Kit called out. “Here are some fishing poles hidden in the bushes. Know what? There must be some boys around.”

All at once upstream they heard somebody whistling. At first it sounded almost like a bird trilling high and clear, but then it suddenly changed to boogie-woogie. The girls sat there on the bank, sheltered from view by the alders, and waited until a flat-bottomed rowboat came into view. Standing at the stern, one bare foot on the back seat and one on the cross seat, with a long punting pole in his hands, was a boy of about fifteen. He looked exactly like Huckleberry Finn, his head protected from the sun by a limp straw hat and his tattered overalls rolled above his knees.

Whistling recklessly, sure of himself and the solitude, he came down the river and guided the boat to shore near where the girls sat scrutinizing him. He hauled it up halfway out of the water, dropped the pole into it, and started up the bank before he caught sight of them.

“That’s Billie Ellis,” Sally said quickly and waved her hand to him. “Hi, Billie.”

“Hi,” Billie returned. “Where’d you come from?”

“Out of the blue,” Doris spoke up merrily. “Got some fish for breakfast?”

Billie hesitated, trying to appear nonchalant, but plainly very much rattled by these girls who had invaded his domain. He rolled down his overalls very slowly and deliberately to gain time, and this gave the others, particularly Doris, a chance to see just what he looked like. He was quite tall, with crew-cut hair of a rather nondescript color, and big brown eyes that were startlingly frank and uncompromising. He was tanned a nice healthy brown, and his smile was eagerly friendly. Altogether, the Craigs approved of Billie at sight. To the others he was more or less familiar, even though none of them knew him well.

“Where you all going?” he asked.

“Just walking over the country,” Abby told him. “Where are you going, Billie?”

Billie flushed at this direct question. “Oh, I don’t know,” he answered lamely. “I come down the river a lot.”

“We fed the owl,” Doris said innocently. “Just some bread and ham. I suppose it thought it was a new kind of mouse.”

Billie glared at her with quick indignation. They had not been satisfied with finding out his landing place and swimming hole. They had gone into the old house and discovered his secret den and the big white owl. He had always regarded girls as semi-dangerous, but this was worse than even he had expected. He turned to Sally as the one in the crowd that he knew best.

“What did you go into the house for?”

“To stay the night,” Sally answered promptly. “The door was open and we went in. If people don’t want company they should keep their doors locked. Anyhow, nobody lives here and we didn’t hurt anything. We wanted to see the ghost.”

Billie grinned at this admission, a quick mischievous grin that made his whole face light up and seem to sparkle with fun.

“Did he come up and rattle his chains for you?”

“No, he didn’t, and I’ll bet he never did for anybody else.”

“Maybe not,” Billie agreed blandly. “How far up the river are you going?”

“To Mount Ponchas.”

“That’s only seven and a half miles. You can go along up the hill road from here, and when you come to the state road that has telegraph poles on it, you turn off and go west. It’s three hills over and you pass through one village, Shiloh Valley. When you come to Ponchas don’t forget to look for the grave of the Cavalier.”

“Where’s that?” asked Doris. “We haven’t heard of it at all.”

This was touching Billie’s heart in the right spot. He knew every acre of land for miles around Elmhurst and was especially interested in its historic lore. The girls did not know it then, but life was quite dull over at the Judge’s place. There were only the Judge; Mrs. Gorham, his housekeeper; Farley Riggs, his general business man; and Ben Brooks, the hired man. They were an unsympathetic household for a boy of fifteen, especially one who had been unwelcome; but he had made friends with Ben and had found him a treasure house of information.

There might be other sections of importance in the United States besides Elmhurst, Connecticut, but Ben held them in slight esteem. He had been born and brought up there and had never even wanted to go away. He was about forty when Billie first came, genial, optimistic, rather good-looking, and an insatiable reader.

Next to roaming over the country, Billie liked best to sit up in Ben’s room, looking at his books and magazines and listening to him talk on current topics and historic events. No subject was too intricate for Ben to tackle. No government ever evaded him when it came to diplomatic tricks or ways. He was on to them all, he told Billie.

It had been Ben who had first told Billie about the mysterious stranger who had come to Elmhurst back in the pioneer days. The colonists had suffered much from Indian raids until there came into their midst a man whom they called the Cavalier. With his Negro servant, he had lived among them and taught them defense against their savage enemies, taught them the best way to win over the soil and reclaim the wilderness. Yet when he died they knew no more of him than on the first day when he rode into their village. His grave lay over on the south side of Mount Ponchas where he had wished it to be, near a rock where he had often held council with the Indians.

“Be sure to see it when you get there,” Billie advised. “I wish I was going along with you.”

“Come over to our place, won’t you, Billie?” Doris asked in her most neighborly way. “I’d like to ask you about some arrowheads we found. Will you?”

Billie nodded his head nonchalantly. It was like giving a bird an invitation to call on you, or handing your card to a rabbit. But he watched them as they went up the hill road from the river, and when Doris turned and waved, he waved back. At least he was interested in his trespassers, even though he could not quite forgive them for having discovered his pet hiding place.

18. Kit and Buzzy Devise
a Scheme

It was noon before they reached Ponchas, although they might have gone ever so much faster if every new flower by the way had not coaxed them to linger. They camped at the base to eat their lunch and then Kit and Ingeborg went hunting the Cavalier’s grave. It was Hedda who found it when she brought water from the spring house that had been built over a live spring gushing out at the base of the rock. Near by was a heap of gray moss-covered rock piled into a cairn, with a rugged rock cross at the head. On it were cut out the words:

He succored us
The Cavalier
1679

“Well, I do think they might have told us more than that,” Jean said, when the others came to look at it. “Perhaps, though, this would have pleased him better.”

They stood for a few moments gazing at the quiet resting place, wondering what the Cavalier’s real story was.

“I think his servant could have told us if he had wanted to,” Etoile said wisely. “I’ll ask my dad about him. He knows many of the old stories of the places around here. He came here from Canada when he was a very little boy. There were wolves around in the wintertime, and the spring came earlier then. He has found arbutus as early as the first week in March.”

When they started back they sang along the road, first the songs that all of them knew, and then Hedda sang two strange Icelandic songs her mother had taught her, lullabies with a low minor strain running through them. She had a strong, sweet voice, and sang with much feeling.

After hearing the other girls Jean said they ought to have a glee club, even if they met only once a month.

“Just for music. Mom told me that music is the universal language that everyone understands. Let’s meet at our house next week, and we can start learning the folk songs of other countries. Etoile can teach us French songs, Ingeborg and Astrid the Swedish ones, and Hedda the songs of Iceland. We could learn a great deal that way and enjoy ourselves at the same time.”

“I think we ought to meet somewhere else, not all the time at your house, Jean,” Etoile demurred in her courteous French way. “We would love to have you come any time.”

“Then we will come, won’t we, girls?” Jean said. “And Lucy will enjoy that because she can sing too, and it will be near home for her.”

But the next few weeks were filled with home activities and it was hard to squeeze in time for all that they had outlined. There were berries to can and preserve, and Ralph McRae prolonged his stay, but only on one condition—that he be allowed to take hold of the farm, with Buzzy’s help, and manage the haying and cultivating for them.

“I had no idea a man could be so handy,” Jean declared. “He’s mended the sink, and he’s burned up the rubbish at the end of the lane, and he put new roofing on the hen houses, and he even climbed into the big elm and put up Doris’ swing for her.”

Kit smiled to herself at this, for secretly she thought Ralph McRae was just right for Jean. And she, too, liked him enormously, he was like the big brother she’d always wanted. She resolved to talk it over with Buzzy, who had become her fast friend, and see if together they could work out some scheme.

“He’s very capable,” Kit agreed. “I think by the time he goes we will have everything on the place mended and repaired.”

“He’s a good doctor too,” replied Jean. “Dad’s been so much better since he came. I wish when he goes back to Saskatoon that he’d take Buzzy with him. He’s got his heart set on going West.”

“Yes,” agreed Kit, “it would be wonderful for Buzzy. Not having a father he should have the companionship of an older man.”

“What do you mean ‘an older man’?” said Jean indignantly. “To listen to you, a person would think Ralph was a decrepit old man of thirty-five. He’s only twenty-four.”

“How do you know how old he is? Did you ask him?”

“No. Becky told me. And I don’t think that’s old at all.”

It took three days to cut the hay, even with the girls and Tommy helping Buzzy and Ralph. One morning when Buzzy and Kit were working together apart from the others, Kit saw her opportunity to discuss her plan for Jean. Buzzy regarded the idea disdainfully at first, but Kit seemed so anxious he rather half-heartedly agreed to do what he could.

Buzzy had a brilliant if indefinite plan to offer. “Look, Kit,” he began. “It’s almost certain that Mom will let me go back to Saskatoon with Ralph. We’ve talked it over and Mother knows how much I want to learn about ranching. Maybe when we get out there, you and Jean could come out and visit us.”

“Wel-l,” Kit said dubiously, “it’s an awfully long way and the trip would cost too much. Besides, he’s here now. Can’t you think of something that would get results right away?”

“Gosh, what are you trying to do, marry her off or something?”

“Of course not, silly. What would I want to do that for? I’m going to miss you, Buzzy,” she added irrelevantly.

“I won’t be leaving until the end of July, so don’t get mournful, yet.”

Later that day, Kit’s confidence in Buzzy was restored, when he came up with a pail of spring water and remarked to Jean, “Say, if you go down where Ralph’s cutting now, you’ll see a bobwhite’s nest and speckled eggs. Don’t take any, though.” And Jean ran off to inspect the nest. “Is that what you meant, Kit?” he said, after Jean had gone.

“You’re getting the idea.”

Ralph was almost finished cutting the hay when Jean ran up. “Buzzy said you found a bird’s nest over here. I came to see it.”

“It’s over this way. Come on, I’ll show it to you,” Ralph said, taking her hand.

“Gee,” said Jean, when he had pointed out the nest with the three speckled eggs, “the country holds so many surprises. Where I used to live we never saw things like this, except in the educational movies they showed us at school. Even in the short time we’ve lived here, I’ve learned so much about the outdoors. Why, now I can name the birds I hear singing in the woods and recognize the wildflower plants even when they’re not in bloom. It’s really amazing.”

“I know,” said Ralph, looking down at her and smiling. “Even I have learned a good deal during my visit. It’s much different from the prairies that I’m used to.”

“Really?” said Jean, returning his gaze. “Tell me what the country out there is like. You haven’t said much about it, you know.”

So Ralph began telling her of his work on the ranch. “I wish you could see it, Jeannie, it’s really beautiful, those rolling prairies and the cattle roaming over the land.”

It was nearly time for supper, so the two walked back to the house together, leaving the others to bring in the wagonload of hay. Ralph went on to talk of other things and by the time they reached the house, Jean felt as though she had known him a long, long time instead of only a few short weeks.